Basketball

Category archives for Basketball

This year’s NCAA tournament is being spread over four tv networks, so that every game is shown in its entirety. Previously, you got whatever game was deemed to hold the most interest for your region of the country, plus occasional looks in at games elsewhere, that usually managed to miss the most exciting bits. For…

There was a lot of great basketball yesterday, but I want to talk quickly about one small thing at the end of the Kentucky-Princeton game, that I think is kind of the basketball equivalent of the oft-debated punt on fourth-and-short in the opponents’ end in football. That is, it’s the wrong play, but also the…

The 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship officially started Tuesday, with the first of the “First Four” games, formerly known as the “play-in” game. It gets going in earnest today, though, which means that once this posts, I’ll be shutting the Internet down and working like crazy for a few hours, so I can justify moving…

It’s NCAA tournament time, which is time for everybody to break out the moralizing stories about the pernicious aspects of college athletics that they’ve been sitting on since the football season ended. The Associated Press (via the New York Times) clocks in with a particularly discreditable entry, a story on a study of racial disparities…

Even though the really important Final Four has already been decided, the Division 1 NCAA basketball championship starts this week, which means it’s time to fill out your championship brackets. And so, as usual, I present the guaranteed-can’t-miss-sure-thing method of picking the winner based on the rankings of Ph.D. programs in physics (excerpt displayed; click…

I stayed up way too late last night, watching televised basketball and reading Steven Erikson (about which more later). It wasn’t a good night for my teams, with both Syracuse and Maryland losing, but this is the most hoops I’ve watched all season, and I have a few miscellaneous comments: – How about that Big…

Brigham Young University dismissed one of its best post players, Brandon Davies, from the basketball team for violations of the university’s honor code. Reportedly, this was for sex, which is one of many enjoyable things forbidden by the school’s rules, which stem from the principles of the LDS church. This really kind of sucks, as…

Last night was Syracuse versus Georgetown in basketball, which is THE great historical rivalry in the Big East– these are the teams that made the league great in the 80’s, and while the Hoyas had a down stretch in the late 90’s/ early 2000’s, they’re good again, so it’s a huge game. Because of that,…

the Wall Street Journal, of all places, has a profile of college basketball analyst Bill Raftery and how he prepares to call games. This would be nothing more than Links Dump material, save for the fact that bits of it appear to have been written for the benefit of visiting aliens who have never seen…

Barack Obama will be visiting Schenectady next Tuesday, and local notables are suggesting things he might do. Particularly notable was this: Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, R-Glenville, a basketball enthusiast like Obama, suggested that some hoop should be organized for the occasion. “I’d like to challenge him to a two-on-two game . . . at the new YMCA in…

Books

You've read the blog, now try the books:

Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist will be published in December 2014 by Basic Books. "This fun, diverse, and accessible look at how science works will convert even the biggest science phobe." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "In writing that is welcoming but not overly bouncy, persuasive in a careful way but also enticing, Orzel reveals the “process of looking at the world, figuring out how things work, testing that knowledge, and sharing it with others.”...With an easy hand, Orzel ties together card games with communicating in the laboratory; playing sports and learning how to test and refine; the details of some hard science—Rutherford’s gold foil, Cavendish’s lamps and magnets—and entertaining stories that disclose the process that leads from observation to colorful narrative." --Kirkus ReviewsGoogle+

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is published by Basic Books. "“Unlike quantum physics, which remains bizarre even to experts, much of relativity makes sense. Thus, Einstein’s special relativity merely states that the laws of physics and the speed of light are identical for all observers in smooth motion. This sounds trivial but leads to weird if delightfully comprehensible phenomena, provided someone like Orzel delivers a clear explanation of why.” --Kirkus Reviews "Bravo to both man and dog." The New York Times.

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is published by Scribner. "It's hard to imagine a better way for the mathematically and scientifically challenged, in particular, to grasp basic quantum physics." -- Booklist "Chad Orzel's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is an absolutely delightful book on many axes: first, its subject matter, quantum physics, is arguably the most mind-bending scientific subject we have; second, the device of the book -- a quantum physicist, Orzel, explains quantum physics to Emmy, his cheeky German shepherd -- is a hoot, and has the singular advantage of making the mind-bending a little less traumatic when the going gets tough (quantum physics has a certain irreducible complexity that precludes an easy understanding of its implications); finally, third, it is extremely well-written, combining a scientist's rigor and accuracy with a natural raconteur's storytelling skill." -- BoingBoing